14 DAY TRIAL // I drop and then roll up to a medium chest then search for the next point I can whip up to. This one sits high, allowing me to see the steps I need to take to make it to the other side of a big chasm. I need to jump down, carefully timing my move to avoid some spikes. Once I do this two times I need to deal with some platforms, which should be easy. I think a disappearing floor is also set between me and the key I need to get. Planning is easy. It’s the execution that often kills me in Phantom Abyss.
The game is developed by Team WIBY and published by the always surprising Devolver, currently in Early Access on Steam. This is a complex action platformer with some rogue elements, focused on procedurally generated locations.
The story, although it offers hints of a bigger world, is focused on the need to gather relics that will allow a demon and the player to escape their current underground situation. The god is immobile so gamers need to move through levels, avoiding obstacles and traps, finding treasure, buying blessings, and watching the actions of ghosts.
Phantom Abyss allows only one player to finish a temple before it is retired. The game also shows the ghosts of the players who have perished in a temple to those who try and go further in. These images can give hints about traps and the best ways to negotiate an area. But paying too much attention to them means that you are moving slow and that the guardians of each temple have a chance to get you.
The game has solid platforming and movement options, augmented by a whip. It’s clearly designed to offer a modern take on a certain Indiana tomb raider and works beautifully to create movement options and incredible life-saving moments.
Phantom Abyss aims for instantly readable rather than impressively beautiful in its presentation. The game needs players to quickly read a space and move and the color coding and visual hints work very well. There are moments of actual beauty n the levels, which is impressive given they are generated, but most players will be moving rather than stopping to admire.
Conclusion
I'm not great at exploring temples. When there are ghosts around I tend to be too careful, aiming not to repeat their mistakes. When I am the first in a temple I am too fast and usually die in the second big area. But I love what Phantom Abyss is doing and can't wait to see how it evolves.
Review code provided by the publisher.
